


You Know What You Must Do

by crabmoney3



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Flash Fiction, Gen, i know this happened literally an hour ago sorry i have no self control, the microphone twitter, well i'm sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:00:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27073870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crabmoney3/pseuds/crabmoney3
Summary: Jaylen Hotdogfingers came back to us twice. Once, leaving incinerations in her wake, and tonight, to lead the Hall Stars to victory against the Shelled One's Pods. As the mic speaks to her, she knows what she must do.
Relationships: Jaylen & Herself, Jaylen & The Mic
Comments: 6
Kudos: 36





	You Know What You Must Do

You Know What You Must Do

By crabmoney3

A book opens. A body burns. She sits in the Hall, dormant. She waits. She listens. She waits. She listens. She waits. She listens. She is found. We pull her from the depths back into our world; a world she left behind. Well, not entirely.

She shakes when she awakes. We have woken her from slumber, from the wrong side of the mound. She winds up and delivers her pitch of death. Why should those around her be safe from the fate she suffered? What privileges them to live when she did not, to stay safe while they are loved in life and her in undeath? She marks them for their ends, asking, “Do you care for me now?” Some beg her to stop. Some tell her to keep going. Someone suggests a deal.

Feedback hums in her ear, tuning in to the signal of the Microphone and she cannot help but listen. It hums a broken sound, whining that there is a plan. That she is more important than she ever could have known. She listens, and begins to flicker. Her kiss of death becomes a force of change—a movement towards something greater. She shuffles. We shuffle. The pieces begin to fall into place.

Still they fear her. She wears not the mask of blue death but a crown of pink change, yet still they fear her. They worry the Gods aren’t done with her yet. And, truly, they are not. But which Gods are not finished makes all of the difference. She hones her skills. She trains. She flickers willingly, swapping away from her team to make them repeat then repeat then repeat. She works to make everyone better. She works to make herself better.

The whine in her ear says it’s almost time. She knows it is almost time. The sky rips open, and she sees it. She sees what she is meant to do. She leads her team. The heel turns and she throws her pitches at those once lauded as heroes, loved as favorites, now turned into the pariahs she once was. The weight of it tugs on her renewed-beating heart and the ball slips from her fingers. A homerun sends her crashing back to Earth. She has failed us.

You know what you must do. She hears the whine, and she does. She knows. But what if she does not want to go back? Back to silence, to listening, to waiting, dormant but not resting, listening and listening for when she’s called once again. She remembers how it felt the first time. She remembers the books opening, embers on her skin growing, crawling up her flesh, burrowing into bones. She thinks about the others who suffered the same fate at her hands.

She knows what she must do.

A deal is a deal, after all. She takes a deep breath. She finishes out the season. She hears the humming, asking us to repeat history. And we do as we are told. We repeat history, and she crosses back over. It does not burn this time, but it is hollow. Empty breaths echo in lungs that no longer pump as she sits in the Hall, dormant. She waits. She listens. She waits. She listens.

It’s now or never.

She does not need to be found. No, this time, she finds the others. She wakes them up and pulls them out of the cold with her. Others who suffered the same fate. Others who are loved so deeply in death as they were in life. Others like her. She realizes she is loved, and they rise.

The book is still open. Their bodies burn as they take to the field. We cheer for them. We fear for them. We are all holding our breath in hollowed lungs, too worried that the slightest change of winds will bring them to their knees. It is working. She pitches, and she pitches, and her teammates swing their heart out at the plate. But something is wrong. The anger from the others, so similar to her own, radiates into their pitching. She hears the whine.

Get shelled.

She know what she must do. Her crown of pink, now teal, shimmers. She turns towards the pitcher’s mound. She turns to her team. “Trust me.” She blows the kiss of change, and now she stands again on the pitcher’s plate. Her opponent is liberated and she feels tendrils of the Shell begin to claw at her. The anger tries to boil her blood just like it did then, but she holds it back. She pitches to her friends. She forgives them. She forgives herself. She lets them win.

She can feel herself losing her grip. She wills herself to stay strong, to fights against thunder in her head. The whine returns, begging her to hold on, but she can’t. She needs to breathe. Her opponent swaps back.

But now he understands her. He, too, knows he can fight. And so the two work together, back to back, holding on as long as they can to fend off the flames. They fight, and they push, and their friends push back. The sky begins to crack and shadows loom over. Tired as they might be, the pair do not stop pushing. The kiss of change becomes a pitch of hope, each one moving closer and closer to liberation. To freedom. To rest.

She lets loose one final pitch.

_Jaylen_

She flickers, but nothing changes. She opens her mouth to speak but finds she has no sound.

_I can’t see you anymore_

Her hands are warm. No longer blistering heat, but a glow. It travels up her fingertips and through her still heart.

_If you can hear me_

She is tired. She has been tired for so very long.

_Thank you_

She smiles and thinks of our faces. Those of us who loved her, in life and in death.

_Wherever you are_

She feels herself wrapped in the love and in the lights. For the first time, she closes her eyes.

_I hope you get to rest_

And drifts away to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> i started sobbing when i saw the mic's tweets after the boss battle and Would Not Stop until i turned it into a flash fiction SORRY


End file.
